Typically, when shopping at a merchant such as a retail store, a consumer may apply for a merchant sponsored payment card that may be used to purchase goods and/or services from the merchant. For example, when checking out, the consumer may be asked by a merchant representative such as a cashier whether he or she wishes to apply for a payment card sponsored by the merchant. If the consumer elects to apply for the payment card, the consumer may provide personal information such as his or her legal name, social security number, home address, or the like. The merchant representative may enter the information into a computing device such as a cash register. Such information may be transmitted to the payment card provider associated with the retail merchant. The payment card provider may use the personal information to screen the consumer to determine whether he or she has suitable credit.
Upon verification that the customer has suitable credit, the payment card provider may assign a payment card account number and an expiration date of the payment card to the customer. The payment card provider then typically generates two barcodes that include the expiration date and account number assigned to the customer. The barcodes are then received by the computing device operated by the merchant representative. Upon receipt, the computing device prints the barcodes on a receipt such that the consumer may use the receipt with the printed barcodes as a temporary payment card until his or her regular payment card may be generated by the payment card provider.
Typically, the barcodes generated by the payment card provider are encrypted or encoded before transmission to the computing device at the merchant. For example, each character of an account number and expiration date may be substituted with an 8-bit binary representation to create a binary sequence. The binary sequence may then be encrypted or encoded. The encrypted or encoded sequence may then be used to generate a barcode with the account number and expiration date embedded therein. Unfortunately, because of the size of the encrypted or encoded sequence, two barcodes are generated for the account number and expiration date.